Pumpkin Tutorial and Bragging on Hubby & Toddler

I hate carving pumpkins. I really dislike the feeling of the goo and guts. And even though they're left uneaten every single year, I still feel compelled to dig out all the seeds, save and clean them, then waste Olive Oil and my time by baking them. And I always challenge myself to carve something extravagant and "fun". This year, Pinterest inspired me to try something different and I left the amazing carving production to hubby. 

Yup. I didn't even cut them open this year. We were able to get these amazing pumpkins at a little pumpkin patch only 20 minutes from us (a huge improvement from last year when we drive 90 minutes and payed out the ass for every little thing). Toddler and Baby Girl were free and they each got a free pumpkin. Hubby and I were $7 apiece and pumpkins were only $3 each, regardless of weight! All of the games and activites were free of additional charge except for feeding the animals, which was only 25 cents for each little cup of food. And corn stalks were only a dollar. I dare you to find anywhere as kid friendly and family oriented with those prices!

On the way home, we stopped at the store to get a can of spraypaint and a package of thumbtacks.

Once home, I started by painting the bottoms. Maybe 5 super thin layers of spray paint and that was covered. I let it dry for an hour and then set them upright to paint the tops and sides. For really good coverage, I painted 6 super thin layers and made sure to get the cracks and crevices around and on the stems.

I then took a thick sharpie to the short pumpkin. That's all it took to do the spider web pumpkin. 

As for the spider, I spray painted the tacks with some spare black paint. This is a total of 70 tacks, one package from the store... if you want to do anything more extravagant, be prepared with plenty of them! They don't go as far as you'd think! This design was freehand, I wasn't looking for anything too flashy or complicated. All in all, I'm really happy with how they turned out! When kids are Trick Or Treating, I'll light a tealight or two in front of them so they're more visible.

I cannot help brag on hubby's awesome carving skills though! Look at that Haunted House!

And this is were I admit that Toddler BEGGED me to carve her a ghost. And I conceded. So it wasn't a completely carve free year for me, but that little ghost only took 8 minutes start to finish so I wasn't too upset by it, seeing as Hubby's pumpkin took almost an hour. And I downright refused to save seeds, which Hubby didn't mind at all.

And of course, Toddler's pumpkin! We decided to let her do her own instead of her sitting there bored and watching us carve what she wanted. She had a blast and we didn't have to deal with her chirping around us like an overexcited chipmunk while we were gutting a pumpkin with sharp knives.